Israel Matters more to America than the U.N.

22 Oct Israel Matters more to America than the U.N.

Here’s my take on the U.N.’s harsh manhandling of Israel. It is important for several reasons, among them, the implications for America. The following has been adapted from my chapter in Israel, the Church and the Middle East, Darrell L. Bock and Mitch Glazer, ed., (Kregel Publications 2018):

Israel’s Future is Our Future

Over the decades that followed the UN vote to recognize Israel’s statehood, United Nations criticism of Israel has grown steadily. It is now at a fever pitch. The UN and other international groups consistently allege a parade of international law violations against Israel. In November 2016, for instance, UN committees adopted ten different resolutions against Israel in a single day.
The evidence is overwhelming that Israel is a legitimate nation and as such, it deserves more respect than the international critics have afforded it. It was founded by a people group with thousands of years of history, and with unique biblical ties to their land – a fact exhaustively supported by history – and with a government that exhibits a heritage of governance and respect for the rule of law, having shown over the years a willingness to enter into good faith negotiations with the international community with one single, unyielding condition; that its people must be kept safe from the crucible of terror that surrounds it.

That one condition is not only the universal right of every nation, it was also enshrined in the Preamble of the United States Constitution, a document designed to protect the American people through a form of government that will “insure domestic tranquility [and] provide for the common defense.” There is much truth in the old adage that Israel is valuable friend to the U.S. because it is the only true democracy in the Middle East. But for us, Israel’s importance goes far beyond that. There continues to be a troublesome clamor for a global enforcement mechanism, described by one international law scholar as a new world legal order that could be accomplished either through “new institutions” or by “strengthening existing institutions,” in order to compel all nation states (American included) to obey “a law above states.”

If that happens, Israel won’t be the only target. The U.S. has already been subjected to scathing criticism from the United Nations regarding our domestic policies. One headline by Aljazeera-America said it all: “US cited for police violence, racism in scathing UN review on human rights.” Will sovereign and freedom-loving countries like Israel and America continue to have the liberty to solve their own domestic problems while pursuing peace through strength? Not if we find ourselves under the boot of global masters or else tethered to a thousand international laws that strap us down to the ground like the giant in Gulliver’s Travels. If, on the other hand, we remain free from those threats, then America may well have Israel to thank for it, for in the struggle to fight for and to preserve the principle of national sovereignty, that tiny nation fights for us all.